The Survivor
by BlackDewInTheMorning
Summary: Every day for over a year she walked by the X-Mansion, come wind or rain . . . waiting. A new-ish look at one of the best and most tragic Wolverine stories of comic-dom: Barry Windsor Smith's Weapon X. Rated for language and some violent images.


Note: This story is largely based off the most amazing comic book, _Weapon X_.

Rated T for language and violent images.

Author's note: This is a one-shot that is nonrelated to my WIP, _The Meaning of Pain, _even if it was more-or-less inspired by it_._ See, I have this thing that I like to do that before I really write a new character into TMOP I sit down at my laptop, open a new file, and then just dump down the best picture of the character that I can manage in a spew of words and ideas.

As a result, this little, rather rough piece was born. I figured it coherent enough to share, even if it's in a universe of its own and literally a word-dump from my mind right onto the paper—sans planning, organization, or intent.

One way or another, I hope you enjoy.

* * *

The Survivor

* * *

I pause on the street, hugging my coat close. It's cold; winter is well on its way, and the humidity of being so close to the sea doesn't help. I never liked being cold. Preferred being indoors. Covered. Controlled.

But that didn't keep me from passing by this street, every day.

I glance over at the iron gate, forcing my feet to cease from their usual walk by and stand still. For once not bothering how conspicuous I must look—how the hidden security cameras were well aware of my attention.

Oh, yes; I'm sure there are security cameras. Probably enough security to make the Pentagon green with envy.

Though who would be stupid enough to try and break in, knowing what's inside—I don't know.

The wind catches at my scarf, tugging it from my neck and I shiver, pulling it back around as I look up at the mansion and grounds. No one is outside. I guess even they don't like the cold.

That makes me look away. I pull back, leaning against the wall as I shut my eyes, remembering the path that took me to this place.

My father wasn't a loving man in any definition of the word. A doctor, unable to save his beautiful wife while she suffered and died in childbirth. I was her last gift—a plain, unremarkable child, as he so often reminded me.

They say it's the classic story; mother dies in childbirth, father becomes obsessed with his work. The child is neglected, and beaten whenever the father comes home drunk. I hated him as much as he hated me.

There are people that would try to blame it all on him, but I'm not that naïve.

I can take blame where it's due.

My excellence in medicine was more to spite him than anything—my goal in life was to exceed him in every way. I worked my way through high school, college. I was just wrapping up my doctorate in chemistry and genetics when my life came to the crossroads.

We were experimenting on metals and forcing breathability by using microscopic nannites that bonded to the bones before the procedure. The idea was to apply the new alloys to reinforce bone structures after being broken or split—a medical miracle. One that would alleviate suffering and pain.

I was working at home on a solution when my father returned from work in one of his less pleasant moods. He struck me, and after years of oppression I reacted, throwing a mass of molten metal on his face.

I didn't even bother calling the cops.

I was cold, then. Didn't regret what I had done—and as much as I realize it's wrong, a part of me still doesn't.

I ran. I didn't have anywhere else to go, except for a professor that had headed our project. Two days later I found that he'd been found participating in illegal experiments; he tried to flee the country, and took me with him.

We didn't even get as far as Europe. In Canada they contacted us, and in a couple hours we had signed on. I don't know how much Dr. Cornelius knew, but neither of us could have known what we were getting into.

Not that it excuses anything.

They took us to base. We worked for two years together, honing down the process, perfecting it. I couldn't say I was happy, but I was busy—useful—and I had a place where I was respected.

It was January when they made the transfer, and we were given the green light for the project. All we needed was the subject.

He arrived on a cold day—but then, it was always cold there. Even hundreds of feet below the ground, with steam and sweat and metal. Never seemed to be able to stay warm, even huddled in my bunk at night.

I hardly remember the first time I saw him. We'd tried the process on subjects before—murderers, rapists. He was no different. Stank of beer, hadn't shaved or bathed for God knows how long—drugged up to hell. They must've emptied a gallon of tranq into him to keep him down that long.

Another sicko, I was sure, and the professor's words only added to that, though the truthfulness of that tale has been thrown into an ocean of doubt. But when one wants to believe, there is little to keep them from doing so.

He claimed the man was a murderer—had killed his immigrant wife and his unborn child in a fit of rage, though there wasn't enough evidence to lock him up. He'd taken to drinking, fallen out of the army, and even tried to kill himself.

Only problem was . . . he couldn't.

We were well into the bonding process by the time it became evident that Experiment X was not our one usual subjects.

Most of the experiments, human or otherwise, died shortly after the initial injection.

Mr. Logan's heart level was off the charts. Blood colored the bio-chem around him, but his blood pressure shot through the roof.

Nothing human could withstand that and live.

A mutant, the professor explained later, though I wonder how much he knew. He seemed as surprised as we did when the metal began pumping into his wrists—too much for the bone surface area that we had calculated for a subject of Mr. Logan's build.

They carted him off to the observation cell as we broke out the wine. Success in the wake of failure after failure lifted our spirits as we toasted to our success and to the future of Weapon X.

It was the first time I really could say that I felt what it was like to be happy.

It didn't last.

That night we found out about the claws. He woke up and ripped into an inexperienced guard that had decided to go into his cell, though God knows why. The kill was quick, at least, though we never kept him so unguarded again. He broke through the one-sided mirror and almost killed Dr. Cornelius right then—and he would have, if it weren't for the drugs and exhaustion already overloading his healing factor. After all, the bonding process had all but cooked him from the inside out, with his healing factor fighting it the whole way.

An animal, the professor called him, when he set him loose on the wolves in a test run. An animal, freed at last. I even let myself believe it, watching him rip into the wolves with a savagery that made even my stomach turn.

But he hadn't moved at first, had he? He'd just stood there, naked in the snow, covered in sheep's blood, looking as dead as alive. Brain damage alone made it a marvel that he could even breathe on his own, and that wasn't even beginning to take into account the psychological trauma. It wasn't until the wolves ripped into him first that he'd fought back. I will never be able to forget his screams.

He was still self-contained, back then. The monitors were external, before the internal monitors replaced them later on, and had to be checked daily. The professor would hardly be bothered, and Dr. Cornelius was afraid of him—ashamed, maybe. Days he would lie in his cell, shackled so he could hardly move. The professor's mood determined whether he would be fed, or if Experiment X would be returned with one less organ, just to see how long it took to regrow. They backed down on the drugs, for that—didn't want them confounding the data.

I remember one time. They'd just taken something—a kidney? A lung? Mr. Logan was lying in his blood on the table, shaking and somehow still alive despite his lack of even the simplest bandage. They hadn't bothered hosing down the room since the operation, and it stank of blood.

_Please,_ he'd whispered. Just one word, so soft and slurred that I may have imagined it.

I left the room and was sick all over the floor. I took the rest of the week off from the flu.

It was a little better when I got back. They'd drugged him up again, and I tried to stay out of the way, behind my monitors. Where he couldn't watch me with those fading eyes.

We worked on Experiment X for four years. The beginning was harder—trying to avoid his eyes. He may have called out to me a couple times, but I was focused on not hearing them, and each time it grew easier as he grew fainter. A couple months into the brainwashing, though, it all stopped. Stopped screaming when the wolves and bullets ripped into him, stopped eating. Had enough drugs in him that only half of the liquid running in his veins was blood. He stopped doing anything, even moving—just sat there, watching. Sometimes I imagined that I could see him—he was stuck in his unresponsive body, waiting, always watching.

I grew at ease enough around him enough to draw close again, especially once we updated to the newer system. We entered into his mind, carefully cropping away any surviving memories after the process—trimming them, shaping them. The professor wanted an animal—something he could point and shoot, and heaven help whatever got in their way. I saw the records, kept careful note of the procedure, and mentioned things to the professor that he shrugged away, even as Dr. Cornelius grew increasingly more uncomfortable.

Surgery without anesthetic. Necessary to keep track of brainwaves, as the professor said—absolutely true, for what it's worth. Kept him drugged enough to barely be able to move—just shaking, the needles poking from his skin making him look like some sort of balding porcupine.

By the end of the period, though, even the shaking stopped. Mr. Logan never slept—we assumed he didn't need to. The professor could move him with a flick of a switch, walk him around, even make him dance, if he wanted.

He was still scared of him, though. I saw him pale more than once when the rare electronic burst would make Mr. Logan's fingers twitch, and was watching him that day he looked down at Experiment X's body lying still and limp on the floor and spilled scalding coffee on his face. The burns healed almost immediately, but Mr. Logan didn't even flicker his half-open eyelids.

I still wonder why it was that he spared me.

It couldn't have been an oversight. He came into the room. He spared nothing as he ripped into Dr. Cornelius—tore him up so bad that the autopsy team had trouble identifying him. The professor didn't fare any better, though at that point I hardly remember. Shock had set in, and for that I am more grateful than I can say.

But I remember that moment. He'd turned, wires and needles still jutting out of his flesh. Bullet holes had shot clean through him, but still he stood—shaking, blood covered. Teeth red and eyes wild and his wild hair weighed down by scarlet. The observation room was silent—the halls echoed with it, after all the screams from just seconds before. Everyone was dead—all 214 members of staff and security that had manned this station. I was sure I was going to join them.

But he'd stopped. Wavered on his feet, breath more growling than human, those horrible, bloodstained claws bared before him. He stopped, and looked at me. And then, without a word, he turned away.

It took 2 hours for reinforcements to reach the base. I was the lone survivor.

Mr. Logan was long gone—lost in the frozen waste of the Canadian Rockies.

His expression is burned into my mind, haunting my nightmares, but I've never been able to figure what it was. Rage? Confusion? Horror at what we had done to him? Or had the programming snapped into place at that moment, saving me from his intent?

I almost thought that it was a bitter punishment from him—intentionally shattering my dreams, haunting my sleep, destroying my life. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't be alone.

I was committed to a mental facility after I tried to take my life for the first time just weeks later. The state washed their hands of me, but after some months I began to improve. After five years I had made significant progress, and the doctor over my care began talking about an eventual release.

And then I saw him on the news.

It didn't matter that I didn't see his face, or that he went by a different name. I saw his stance, his build, his eyes.

A hero, they called him.

I became obsessed. I scrambled for any information I could have about him, seeking for some misdeeds to reveal him for the animal I had been convinced he was. Trying to figure out who was controlling him, and how. I regressed—the nightmares returned, and my release date was pushed back indefinitely.

I gathered the information. His name: Wolverine, they called him. As fitting a name as anything, as far as I was concerned. Pictures—pictures of him with that team of his—the X-Men, they called themselves. Pictures of him fighting, those inhuman claws bared, his eyes wild. Stories of brawls and drinking, and rumors of his bawdy character. Pictures of him looking at the camera, expression irritated. Somehow I felt like he was still there—still watching me. The one that got away.

Pictures of him standing next to a young girl from that team of his, an arm around her as they walked away from some ruined battlefield behind them. Pictures of him working to clean up after an attack in New York City. Pictures of him rescuing a baby from the flames of an apartment fire and handing the child back to its mother. Her frozen tears aren't what reached me, but it was him. Mr. Logan, half bent with an arm curled around his gut. Fire had burnt his hair back and I could see something shining beneath his torn brow—evidence of my time with him. Anyone else would be on the ground in agony, but he was looking at the baby—those dark eyes completely focused on that and nothing else.

Some could say that I have something to do with the hero he's become. Whatever he was before—murderer, drunkard—he couldn't have faced up against the Hulk without the adamantium we gave him. He couldn't have survived half of the battles he's been in without it.

But the more I followed his story, the more I realized that Wolverine was not the Weapon X we had been striving to make.

Nothing good could have been born out of that hellhole. It was a wonder that he'd survived. A miracle that he survived with his mind intact. A testimony of the power of his healing factor.

But the survival of that goodness was something that did not grow from his DNA, any brainwashing, or manipulation. It was all just him—Mr. Logan. The very human man.

Faults, strengths, and all.

He was a private man—one that stayed out of the spotlight more than his fellow heroes. Half the pictures I found of him had him looking away—his face intentionally turned as if he didn't want to be seen. But I could see it in his eyes. The same shadows I had seen when he had looked up to me in that room and said just one word: _please_.

The leather jacket and macho image only went so far on me. I'd seen him cry, heard him scream, gasp—even die. He's been hurt, and how much no one can say except for the one survivor to walk away with a memory of that time. Four years of eternity. Four years of burnt records and time all but erased from memory.

I was released from the mental hospital two years ago. It took me a full year to get my feet back under me. Medicine didn't interest me; I ended up working any meager job I could hold to support me.

It took me four months more to track him down. I moved to New York, and had a taxi drive me to 1407 Graymalkin Lane. Since that day, I've walked by this mansion every day, waiting, wondering.

Half-fearing that he would see me, smell me, hear me, and decide to come back and finish the job. I, out of everyone, know the strength of his capabilities.

Or would it be worse? Would he remember? If he did, what would he _say?_

But I have to know. I have to see. Have to . . .

Do what, you ask? The thought of trying to make some sort of apology makes me sick. There's nothing I can do to atone, nothing I can do to be forgiven.

But here I am, standing outside the gate, waiting.

The wind catches at my greying hair and I push it away, pulling my eyes away from the mansion. I'm colder than ever, but that's how it is, and always will be.

"Somethin' ya need, lady?"

I don't know the voice—a soft baritone. Low, a bit rough, but not at all unpleasant for all of that.

As I turn I realize I've never heard him speak before—not really. Just screams and whispers. "M-mr. Logan?" my voice trembles on the name I know so well.

I needn't have asked. I know him—know his face, know his body better than a lover. Unchanged after all these years, but I would expect that better than anyone. But he looks back, watching me with those familiar eyes.

Animalistic, wild. But somehow more human and expressive than any I have ever seen.

He doesn't have a clue who I am, and his next words confirm it.

"Do I know you?"

The feeling that washes over me is half-relief, half guilt. I almost want him to remember, to pop those claws and end it. I remember him standing there, covered in gore—an animal god come down to extract revenge. I remember stripping him, layer by layer: clothes, humanity, sanity, and his eyes burn into mine. His eyes, always watching—just like they were now—and I choke.

Before I know it, I'm on my knees. The fall hurts—I'm not as young as I used to be, but I hardly recognize it as I feel a strong hand catching my wrist, an arm going around my shoulders as I break down.

"Whoa. Hey, hey. Where's the fire?" he jokes.

He jokes! A pitifully weak one—one called on in almost desperation. His discomfort is clear—he doesn't know what to do with me: a sobbing old woman collapsing on the sidewalk. But the human reaction only cuts me deeper, and I cover my face, sobbing in earnest.

_Why didn't you let me die?_

I'm conscious of him kneeling in front of me, his hands the only thing keeping me from falling onto my face. His joking manner is gone, and those eyes watch me with all seriousness. _Caring._

But he seems to sense that the matter isn't urgent. He's patient, now—waiting as I struggle to control myself. I wave off his hand and he lets go when he's sure that I'm steady enough on my own. I stand shakily on my own two feet, feeling weak and fragile beyond belief.

"You okay?" he murmurs, his voice a bit gruff to cover his discomfort. No, he's not used to this role at all.

I nod; I don't think I can manage the words at the moment.

_Human, Carol,_ I think, and I realize that's what brought me here. I had to see it—had to feel it, had to understand the fullness of what I'd done.

"I—I'm sorry," I manage to whisper. I mean for the break-down, but the words make me sick. I pull away, unable to look at him. Unable to look away.

"My—my name's Carol Hines, Mr. Logan," I force out. Still no recognition—not even a flicker.

But he does speak again, his voice touching me at my core.

"Just Logan."

I suddenly realize that I'd never learned his first name—or his last. It'd just been Logan all along.

Was that something we'd done to him, or had he been running—hiding—before?

I'd never bothered to ask, and now I realized I'd never know.

"Logan," I repeat, my voice cracking on the name, but I manage not to break down again. He reaches out as if to catch me again, but I shy away. I can't bear to touch him again. I don't have the right.

"Hey, Wolvie! What's keeping you?" a brown-haired girl pops through the wall—no, her _head_ pops through the wall, and then the rest of her body follows as she sees me. "Whoa, hey. Everything all right?"

"Yes, yes," I say, wiping the tears away. I hardly hear myself as I explain how Wolverine had saved one of my grandchildren—an easy enough lie. Logan looked uncomfortable as I thanked him. Even tried to shrug it off, while the girl mutant beamed at his side.

I say goodbye to them both and the girl pulls him through the wall. I can hear him cursing at her on the other side, but the girl laughs in good fun. Despite the dark clouds and cold wind, her voice is warm with trust.

I move along, never to return. I feel empty. The cold is still there. A thousand years of cold bearing down on me, and no place to put it.

THE END


End file.
